11 comments:

When the worlds most famous tennis player says there should be more testing, then there probably should be more testing. Federer has no incentive to ask for more tests unless he genuinely feels they are necessary. I can understand Miller going after Djokovic (although he should have addressed the technical issues), but very disappointing to see him criticize Federer's comments.

Miller does not distinguish between diametrically opposed positions and rather slams both Djokovic and Federer only to come out as the "winner" by claiming bs like the following:

>"I'm confident the tennis anti-doping program is using all the tools available to it to maximize its efficiency but we must remember, you also need a deterrent effect and prevention effect and education as well," Miller said.

>"I think that tennis is doing a good job in the programs it has and we've had two fairly high-profile cases recently with Marin Cilic and Viktor Troicki and let's not forget both of those cases resulted in violations for the athletes concerned," the ITF's anti-doping manager Stuart Miller said on Thursday.

"To me that shows that the program is successful in catching the people it is supposed to be catching so I don't think it's necessarily fair criticism," he told Reuters at the World Conference on Doping in Sport.>

If I were Troicki or Cilic and read delusional statements like the above, I'd be suspecting that I had been used majorly - only to justify statements like the above to whitewash the ITF. Not to catch dopers, mind me, but to run an ad campaign for the effectiveness of this scam named TADP. Just in time for the WADA conference in Johannesburg... how timely.

Too bad Troicki won't name any names to expose the ITF's program as biased and ineffective, for those names would be too close to home - so he can't hit back as one would expect him to do...

Cilic won't take apart their program either - he needs to make money off the tour to pay back his loans for his Monte Carlo apartment.

That said, the ITF is indeed getting slightly tougher on players near the top (though not touching their cash cows) only to then use these two recent cases as poster-examples of a perfectly functioning program... What a dickish move...to send these two clowns to their respective doom ( still a comparably comfortable place, I know) for a short while to claim a succesful program...

Not that I am anywhere near team Troicki or team Cilic - but still, I could understand if they are mad as hell about this.

Interesting that MIller used the word "efficiency", as opposed to "effectiveness"...

I'm guessing that budgets are always to the fore in his mind. Although he is in a position to angle publicly for budget increases (which I suspect are necessary), instead, he and his team have been coming in under!!

World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman has denied tennis has a problem with performance-enhancing drugs.[...]Howman has applauded the demand for more stringent doping measures in tennis but has denied the sport has a major issue.

"I don't think tennis has a problem, per se. I think tennis has a high profile issue in that the athletes at the helm are saying 'we want more' and I think that's a good thing," Howman said.

"I think, if you have to athletes praising the fight against doping and asking to be tested more, then the response from the national federation will be: 'We will do it.'

"And, if they don't, they'll be risking the wrath of their top players which I don't think any international federation would want.

"So, from our perspective, having athletes speak out is the best possible progress we could make. Having athletes support what we do is even better.

"And when we recall some of those tennis players, Andy Murray in particular, three or four years ago, he was very critical of anti-doping in general. Now, he's one of the ones calling for more.

The head of WADA is saying this? Makes me want to weep - how fucking clueless can someone be? Especially someone who is the head of the most significant anti-doping agency in the sporting world. Like arcus, I am speechless.

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From what I've seen of it, I actually think it gives a pretty decent articulation of the worst-case scenario. But it cherry-picks things to support its particular theory, and ignores things that don't fit.-ESPN sportswriter, Kamakshi Tandon, expressing her opinion of this blog

"She kind of has, like, almost the game of a man. That's what it feels like."-Jelena Jankovic describing Samantha Stosur's masculine approach to the game of tennis.

"Players can use short-acting steroids in combination with human growth hormone which will produce muscle mass and enormous power, and while they can stop just before a competition and test clean, they still get the performance benefit of the drugs" Former chief executive of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, John Mendoza, 2002, claiming that tennis was approaching a crisis.

"To say that tennis today is clean, you have to be living in a dream world."Nicolas Escude, French Davis Cup player, 2002

[Former number 1, Marcelo] Rios thinks that the ATP protects Agassi of doping "I know that if nandrolone were found on Agassi, they would not disclose it. He is a very prominent, very popular player and if he were to fall, the world of tennis would fall with him." The Chilean remembered a case in Australia 2002 "where there was a control and Agassi disappeared, saying that they were going to kidnap his son..."

Also,

"Suspicion among the other players had long been rife that he [Agassi] may have used some substances to help him become one of the fittest and strongest guys around, although there was never any proof. There were some dubious circumstances, none more than his early-morning withdrawal from the defence of his title at the 2002 Australian Open, citing a wrist injury."

-Former Wimbledon champion, Pat Cash

"The ATP also suffers from a dilemma. Imagine if Federer or Nadal were caught doping. I probably would not suspend them, because they are too important. But where is the line?"- Former Pro Andrei Medvedev

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"A site created by Don Quixote followed by numerous Sancho Pansas fighting windmills...."-From a commenter

"...in this steroid era we have lived in for the last decade or so, it has become wise for us in the media, to at least be wary of a player such as Nadal, who is so cut, so ripped, so buff for a tennis player, because we’ve never seen a good tennis player with that kind of physique."

"I can definitely say the same thing [discussing Steffi Graf’s claim that she had played against at least one top player who used steroids]. Steroids can really make a difference, physically and mentally. I’d be really disappointed if I had been ranked No. 2 behind someone who took steroids."-Chris Evert 1992

"Someone tried to get in the development, doing a drug test," [Venus] Williams said. "If I wasn't tested in the next two hours, I wouldn't be playing on tour. You know, there's always someone at the gates, trying to get in. Normally, I tell the gate, 'Tell them Venus moved to Siberia some months ago.' "

... she had trouble with her password in the computerized system overseen by the World Anti-Doping Agency. She also said registered mail at her home could not be signed off on since she was traveling to WTA tournaments.- Yanina Wickmayer explains (in a dog ate my homework kind of way) why she was unavailable for mandatory drug testing.